


This Kind of Cruelty

by wrennette



Series: Possible Futures [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Mental Illness, Self-Harm, Self-Mutilation, alliance marriage, attempted suicide, background Arthur/Gwen - Freeform, foresight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 16:04:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4793759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrennette/pseuds/wrennette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin watches Morgana slowly go mad from knowing the future and being unable to say or do anything about it. <b>Trigger warning: depicts mental illness resulting in self-harm, self-mutilation, and attempted suicide</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	This Kind of Cruelty

**Author's Note:**

> Archiving from LJ. Originally posted 2009. 
> 
> Disclaimer: Merlin is the property of the BBC, characters just borrowed for entertainment purposes. Author makes no profit.

Merlin watches Morgana slowly go mad from knowing the future and being unable to say or do anything about it. Her eyes grow wilder at first, when she is trying to ignore the visions that come to her at night. After a while, after she has tried three times since Uther's death to tell Merlin what is coming, her eyes go flat and dead. 

She wanders the castle at night, and the servants begin to speak of her as _the witch_. She sweeps through the darkened empty corridors in her nightdress, a spectral vision, her hair tumbling wildly over her shoulders. In the daylight she looks wan and wrung out, her once vibrant beauty fading to a brittle mother-of-pearl translucency.

The suicide attempts begin when Arthur pledges his troth to Gwen. She casts herself into a well that very night, but can't quite bring herself to breathe in the cold black water, and so she is pulled out only half dead and sopping wet in the morning. A week later she throws herself down the stairs of one of the towers, but only manages to break her leg and crack her skull. The healing skills that Merlin has against all odds learned from Gaius keep her alive, but she will never stand quite straight again, and her fragile beauty is shattered beyond his skill to repair. 

While she is confined to her bed, healing from her self-inflicted wounds, she cannot escape the dreams that lurk behind her eyes. In an attempt to stop them, she claws out her eyes, trying to reach into her head and forcefully extract the visions. When Merlin comes to check her leg in the morning, her face and hands are covered in blood and ichor, her once white gown and bed stained red and brown. 

It takes a long time for Morgana's strength to return, but finally it does, and unable to look at her ruined face, Arthur sends her to the Chieftain of the Druids to cement their new alliance. With the marriage Morgana gains not only a husband, but a son Mordred who is already in his teenage years. 

The night of her wedding, Merlin dreams, and Morgana stands over him with her ruined face and her ruined white chemise, her bloody hand on the boy's shoulder as he raises a bloody Excalibur into the storm wracked sky.


End file.
